Taiwan keeps World Bank ranking

Taiwan ranked 16th in the world in the overall regulatory ease of doing business this year, unchanged from a year earlier, a report released by the World Bank showed on Monday.

Officials with the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said the latest report showed that the country has failed to make significant progress in reforming its business environment.

The CEPD officials said that based on the latest ranking, there is still room for Taiwan to improve its regulatory climate and make it more attractive to the private sector.

Last year, Taiwan made a big leap in the World Bank ranking, cracking the world’s top 20 for the first time to rank 16th, up from 25th in 2011.

Now in its 11th year, the World Bank’s Doing Business Report covers regulations in 11 areas that affect businesses, such as “trading across borders,” “enforcing contracts,” “registering property,” and “getting electricity,” to assess countries’ business environments.

The latest report, which did not include the “employing workers” category in its rankings, covered 189 economies.

According to the World Bank, while Taiwan failed to climb in the overall doing business ranking, the country jumped in the “trading across borders” indicator to 18th, from 23rd last year and 27th in 2011.

Taiwan also made progress in “enforcing contracts,” moving up to 84th this year from 90th last year, and it moved up a notch in the “registering property” category to 31st, the report said.

However, the country lost ground in other categories, falling one notch to 17th in the “starting a business” category and to seventh from sixth in “getting electricity.”